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5 Steps to create a brilliant online portfolio

An online portfolio is pretty much a necessity for any creative professional. Whether you’re a photographer, artist or designer, you’ll want one that gets results. In this post, we’ll show you how to create a successful online portfolio – with a few great tips from Mike, one of our designers here at Moonfruit HQ.

1. Curate your best projects

Take the time to choose the perfect work to display on your website. ‘If you want to appeal to a specific employer/industry, it goes without saying you should draw focus to the work that is relevant to them,’ Mike explains. ‘If you’re having trouble deciding what to include, Dribbble is really good for constructive criticism and feedback from other designers’.

2. Create your bio

Write a short bio about you, your speciality, and your mission. ‘Be clear in your website messaging what you are good at. Try not to communicate you are great at everything – people will come to your site because they are looking for a specific need, so be the expert in that’.

3. Give some context

Write up the backstories of your projects so they can run alongside your work. Here you can include images of the work in progress, or photograph your work to provide context and showcase the designs as they were meant to be seen. ‘If you have previous iterations, show them off. Explain why they weren’t right for the brief and in what ways the newer version is better,’ Mike advises.

4. Present your work

It’s time to pull everything together and build a website to showcase your projects. If you need a bit of creative inspiration, you can find some great online portfolio designs here. Go for a simple design and avoid visual clutter that draws the attention away from your work. Choose a fixed menu to ensure the menu stays visible when scrolling the page, for ease of navigation around your galleries.

5. Share and update regularly

Some great channels to share your projects include Dribbble, Behance, and DeviantArt. Mike: ‘Look for the right channel to share your work, and make sure those pieces link to your website’. Remove older work as you create new projects to show off. ‘Be strict and brutal – cull anything that isn’t relevant or up to date,’ he adds. ‘Prospective clients will be able to see as much capability from a single good piece of work as they can from fifty poorly selected pieces’.

If you have any tips around portfolio creation or know of a useful channel for sharing your designs and artwork, get commenting below!